The Republican Presidential Debate: The Scary, the Spectacular, and the Surprisingly Boring

Too long, too long! Longer than the Oscars, even if you watch the red carpet on E! before the show even starts!

Nevertheless, I am glued to CNN for the second edition of the Republican presidential candidates debate, a roughly five-hour extravaganza beginning at 6:00 p.m. with the undercard, also dubbed the kiddie table or the happy hour debate, featuring the sad sacks relegated to their own distant corner in the high school cafeteria of life.

If your sharp eyes detect a few empty spots on the podium at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, you are correct. The luckless Rick Perry has gone broke—or at least his campaign has—and dropped out of the race, and the other no-show, Jim Gilmore, a guy whom no one knew was running in the first place, couldn’t even make the 1 percent average poll figure CNN required for inclusion. (I mean, come on, the Baby Lynnie party could probably have reached that threshold.) Plus, the main event at 8:00 p.m., formerly featuring the top 10, has been expanded to 11 to accommodate Carly Fiorina, whom Donald Trump will describe a few hours hence as a beautiful woman with a beautiful face.

Now on with the early show! There’s a giant plane behind the tuneless quartet on the stage—it’s the Air Force One that Reagan himself flew around in—and someone I have never heard of called Natalie Hill attempts to sing “The Star-Spangled Banner,” never an easy assignment.

You can’t help but feel sorry for these guys (well, maybe you can) as they tilt at windmills and each other. In brief: Bobby Jindal wants to throw the mayors of sanctuary cities in jail; Lindsey Graham answers virtually any question, no matter the subject matter, with his plans to send ground troops to the Middle East because—and I quote—“We’re gonna kill every one of these bastards we can find.”

George Pataki says he is in favor of taxing Wall Streeters but he draws the line at raising the minimum wage; Rick Santorum proposes a 50-cents-an-hour raise per year for three years, which in this crowd makes him a regular Bernie Sanders. Then Pataki says boldly that he would have fired Kim Davis because he believes in the rule of law! Which drives Rick Santorum nuts and prompts him to cite Dr. King’s “Letter From Birmingham Jail,” which drives me nuts.

The four stick around for a group photo with the 11 characters that have come onstage for the main event (like being in the senior picture when you know you’re not going to graduate). But then they are whisked away to oblivion, for a roast beef sandwich at Arby’s or wherever losing candidates go, and it’s time for the big boy—and one girl—show. Each of the 11 gets a moment to introduce themselves (do you need me to list them? Please, no) and most of them, in a bold leap, thank their wives (except for one, who thanks a husband). Marco Rubio says he is responding to the drought by waving a water bottle, joking that he brought his own (doesn’t get a laugh). Scott Walker compares himself to Reagan; Donald Trump says, for the millionth time, that he has made millions and millions of dollars.

What’s good, Carly? Fiorina calls Trump a wonderful entertainer, not meant as a compliment; Trump says Rand Paul shouldn’t even be there—his abysmal poll numbers mark him as number 11!—and Paul retorts that there is a sophomoric quality to Trump, to which Trump responds by threatening that anytime he feels like it, he can make fun of the way Paul looks. Walker attempts to elevate this banter by saying we don’t need an apprentice in the White House (get it?). Trump, who will later allege that he has plenty of time to learn about foreign policy between now and when he arrives on Pennsylvania Avenue, describes Syria as “a mess.” There are lots of opinions on whether Obama should have the president of China to dinner next week—Paul says he should; Jeb Bush agrees, yes, eat dinner with him but use what he calls “offensive tactics.” (Like what, put Ex-Lax in his vichyssoise?) Walker says he’d love to play cards with Obama because he folds so quickly.

Mike Huckabee argues that if we let the Fort Hood shooter grow a beard in prison, we should let Kim Davis not issue marriage licenses. Chris Christie states that Hillary Clinton believes in “the systematic murder of babies in the womb.” Ted Cruz says if you vote for Hillary, you are voting for the Ayatollah Khomeini.

Trump, who is flatly creepy about women, repeats once again how he will take care of us, then returns unwisely to the subject of Fiorina’s face. Just when eyelids are drooping all over America, things suddenly perk up: Carly and Donald are embroiled in a nasty argument over who is the worse CEO! Christie senses this is too much fun and shuts it down.

If only you hadn’t switched off the TV by now, you will learn that Jeb! smoked weed in high school. Trump says that maybe, just maybe, he won’t take his Social Security and he thinks other rich guys like him would follow suit. There is even a discussion, two hours in, of vaccines and autism, which Dr. Ben Carson, a surprising voice of reason, says wearily is a connection that is demonstrably false. When gun control comes up, Rubio states that it won’t do any good because—if I hear him right—the real problem is that poor people have no values.

But just when it occurs to you that this gang is not just scary but surprisingly boring, here comes a good question: What woman would they want on the $10 bill? A few clods suggest their wives, Walker opts for Clara Barton, John Kasich likes Mother Teresa, and Bush shockingly suggests Margaret Thatcher. Fully three prospective candidates go with Rosa Parks. Really, fellas? Mrs. Parks, a lifelong progressive who was trained in militant resistance tactics at the notoriously left-wing Highlander Center, a hotbed of socialist activism?

Which makes you wonder—when Huckabee, excoriating President Obama, opines that “the most dangerous person in the room is the person who doesn’t know what he doesn’t know,” could he also be referring slyly to his fellow candidates? Or on second thought, maybe he really means me, since I don’t know why I like this stuff so much, and why, despite the lateness of the hour and the soul-numbing spectacle of watching this crew for nearly five hours straight, I can’t wait for October 13, when at long last the Democratic chattering class—maybe Biden! Maybe not!—will arrive in the all-American netherworld of Las Vegas for their own first big adventure.